Toronto sets up school-based clinics to vaccinate education workers, students ahead of return to class

More than 27 clinics are planned for schools over the next two weeks to help more than 3,500 education workers get vaccinated.

Thestar.com
Jan. 7, 2022
Francine Kopun and Kristin Rushowy

The city is stepping up efforts to get more education workers and students vaccinated over the coming days to help ensure that schools reopen for in-class learning as scheduled by the province on Jan. 17, said Toronto Mayor John Tory on Thursday.

Four vaccination clinics, with appointments specifically for education workers, will be held in two city-run immunization clinics this Sunday and on Jan. 16, said Tory, speaking at a press conference.

“This effort will help more than 3,500 education workers get vaccinated as soon as possible,” said Tory.

School boards will be booking education workers for those appointments, according to a city spokesperson.

Additionally, more than 27 clinics are planned for schools over the next two weeks to help students, their families and education workers get vaccinated. Health teams are working with school boards to offer more clinics in areas where vaccination rates need to be increased, Tory added.

Toronto Public Health is also redeploying staff to focus on getting students and teachers vaccinated as soon as possible.

The news comes amid growing concern over the number of children  including newborns  being admitted to hospital with complications arising from COVID-19 infections.

At Thursday’s press conference, Dr. Eileen de Villa, Toronto’s medical officer of health, said it’s too early to say whether the increase in infections among children is due to more people being infected by the Omicron variant, or whether the variant is having a more serious impact on children than previous strains of the virus, which has been circulating  and mutating  since being identified in China in December 2019.

“I think that’s what has yet to be completely sorted out,” said de Villa, adding that the new variant is only weeks old. “I think there is still much for us to really understand in respect to the Omicron variant.”

So far, 92 per cent of 12- to 17-year-olds in the city have had their first dose, and 88 per cent have had two doses. About 45 per cent of children ages 5 to 11 have received their first vaccination and remain a priority, Tory said.

The city’s vaccination capacity has been increased from 400,000 to more than 1.2 million doses per month. City staff are working to add 8,500 new vaccine appointments to city-run immunization clinics this Sunday and Monday. These new appointments (which are in addition to the 3,500 appointments for educators) will be available through the provincial booking system beginning at 8 a.m. on Friday.

Fourth doses at the city’s 10 long-term-care homes began Thursday and will continue throughout the week, Tory said.

Staff in city services that have been closed or scaled down due to the pandemic are being redeployed in essential services, beginning with vaccination clinics, city-run shelters and long-term-care homes.

The Toronto effort is part of a larger push by the Ministry of Education and the chief medical officer of health to prioritize vaccines for education staff.

Sources told the Star that a large vaccine clinic is also planned at the International Centre in Mississauga starting Friday, where certain times of the day will be set aside to give priority to education workers.

Similar clinics are to ramp up in the GTA this week and then “be replicated throughout the province,” a source told the Star. “The intent is to start up (Friday) so that, ideally by the 17th, if schools reopen, any education workers and child-care workers have their next level of vaccination.”

Unions and a number of education organizations have been asking that teachers and school staff be able to get their boosters quickly, so that classes can resume.

Premier Doug Ford announced the delay of in-person learning until at least Jan. 17, saying the province faces a “tsunami” of COVID cases because of the highly transmissible Omicron variant.